Egypt militant group claims prosecutor bombing

An Egyptian militant group said on Friday that it tried to assassinate the deputy prosecutor general with a car bomb, a day after the blast in a Cairo suburb.

Police had said the Thursday night bombing had occurred as the official's convoy drove past the rigged car wounded a passerby. The prosecutor, Zakareya Abdelaziz, was unharmed.

The Hasm group, which has claimed attacks in Cairo in recent months, said it was was behind the bombing in a statement circulated on social media.

The recently emerged group published purported pictures of the moment the bomb exploded, and threatened further attacks against "the oppressive judiciary."

The group, about which little is known, had previously claimed responsibility for killing a policeman and for the attempted assassination of a pro-government Muslim cleric.

The militants used 3.5 kilograms of high explosives in the failed attempt on Thursday night, military sources have said.

The explosives, thought to be TNT, were placed inside a car and detonated to target the convoy of deputy prosecutor general Abdelaziz as it drove through eastern Cairo on Thursday night.

The blast went off one minute after Abdelaziz’s convoy passed, military sources told the al-Arabiya news site, injuring a passer-by.

Egypt’s prosecutor general, Nabil Ahmed Sadiq, has ordered a probe into the attack.

Investigators say they suspect that the militants behind Thursday’s attempted assassination used the same methods as those employed during an attack that killed Egypt’s late prosecutor general Hisham Barakat last June.

Barakat’s convoy was targeted by a remotely detonated car bomb as it drove through eastern Cairo, killing him along with at least three other passers-by.

Barakat had been behind a string of controversial judgements during his two-year stint as Egypt’s top legal official.

Abdelaziz was appointed by a presidential decree from Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last March after serving as head of Cairo’s appeal courts.

In his previous role Abdelaziz had worked closely alongside Barakat and played a prominent role in reviewing judgements against Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including the death sentence issued against deposed former president Mohamed Morsi.